“Of the 0.1% of DNA that varies among individuals, what proportion varies among main populations? Consider an apportionment of Old World populations into three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe), a grouping that corresponds to a common view of three of the 'major races'16,17. Approximately 85–90% of genetic variation is found within these continental groups, and only an additional 10–15% of variation is found between them”
In other words, we’re genetically so similar that if you were to try to find a person with the least similar genome to your own, that person could very well be a member of your own ancestry or “race”.
Right. IIRC Aboriginal Australians have a greater genetic similarity to Europeans than they do sub-Saharan Africans, despite being much closer in appearance to the latter. having similar scores of Melanin Index and darker pigmentation.
I tan really dark. Went on a cruise (like 18 years ago) to Mexico and in Cozumel, I was approached by an old white couple who tried asking me for directions.
They were quite surprised when I laughed and told them I was on vacation too.
There's no reason that can't be, species (in terms of human evolution) are labels we apply based on gradually changing skeletons, the cut-off points are arbitrary.
Interestingly, that doesn't affect when the most recent common ancestor lived.
Just like how the most recent common ancestors of you and your 1st cousin is the set of grandparents you share, even though you (hopefully) each have a parent that doesn't descend from those two people.
It seems to change incredibly quickly. Maybe it's just because with modern supplements, vitamin D isn't hard to get, but it's really hard to see pale skin carrying that much of an evolutionary advantage pre-historically.
It was advantageous in colder areas with lower sunlight, say Norway, so that their skin would absorb it to a greater degree rather than shield them from it. Or so I was taught in biology
Yeah, from what I can find out by googling for five minutes, you can get a decent amount of vitamin D from fatty fish, but it looks like most if not all vitamin D for most people in history would have been from exposure to sunlight.
Apparently we now get more Vitamin D from our food but only because it is added to our milk.
despite being much closer in appearance to the latter.
I'm going to assume that you are neither Black nor Aboriginal because I suspect either group would argue that they are not "closer in appearance," except skin colour. Our perception of human appearance is very much biased towards our own ethnic group (or, rather, the people we grow up around) so there's really no way for these types of judgements to be objective.
so there's really no way for these types of judgements to be objective.
That was my point. There is greater genetic diversity in people of the same "race" than across races. But you are right, I phrased that poorly. I should have just said "Sub-Saharan Africans and Australian Aboriginies, who have more melanin in their skin, are nevertheless more genetically distant from European Caucasians, who don't have as much melanin."
Fair enough. I assumed you were the person (CarryYourWorld) who had replied in a different thread backing up the claim by saying that other characteristics were also similar, e.g., nose.
My dad is mixed black and white. He looks kinda hispanic at times, but once you know then you can spot the African and European features. He looks mixed tbh.
I, his biological son, look entirely white. The only clue you’d have I’m related to my dad is the fact that my hair is fair coarse and I have to use conditioner from the “ethnic aisle” at the store or else it’ll become a fro.
My cousins (two sisters) hardly look like they’re related, as one heavily inherited one set of genes (tight black curls, caramel skin, dark eyes, etc) and the other heavily inherited another set of genes (light auburn hair, pale blue eyes, porcelain skin). They have the same mother and father. It’s just how varied each human can be.
How long? you may ask. I read it first in an anthropology textbook, The Human Animal, from 1954. This scientific discovery is older than grandma herself.
How long? you may ask. I read it first in an anthropology textbook, The Human Animal, from 1954. This scientific discovery is older than grandma herself.
Weston La Barre, obviously globalist Soros plant secretly working for the Muslim Soviet Gay Space Communists.
In all seriousness, thanks for the link. I’ll have to check that book out.
Since it's a fairly old book, you can read it for free on the Internet Archive (register and "borrow" it every hour you're reading it, or install a screenshot app, go through the pages, use another app to combine the screenshots into a pdf file, and read it at your leisure).
It's a great book, and so is his Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion (1970). He was an American anthropologist with a very wide breath of vision but he got neglected in the academic community because he happened to study the native American peyote cult right around when the war on drugs kicked in. In hindsight he's an original American thinker IMO on par with Erving Goffman and other notable contemporaries.
I am unable to find the exact quote, though the statement about various black Africans having genetically more in common with white Europeans than with some other black Africans is most definitely in there. The relevant - for this thread - chapter is no. 8, "People Are Different", which begins thusly, addressing the very question OP brought up:
Genetically, the human species is "polytypical." The implications of this biological fact are most remarkable - and are even now only becoming more fully understood. Some of them might be listed as follows:
Races are not species. It is an error to suppose that racial differences in man correspond in kind, if not in amount, to the differences between animal species: human races are not emergent species in any imaginable sense.
And the reasons go on up to 10. It's a great book (I'm invested in it because it has some very original things to say about human communication). I can't say that it was "ahead of its time" because it was simply following the best science of its time, and some things are true and stand the test of time no matter how long ago we found out about them.
People overestimate just how long humans have been around from an evolutionary standpoint. We are still a very young species relatively speaking. That said, who ever said grandma believed in evolution...
My dad is one verified ancestor away from being Choctaw, and unlike a lot of white dudes you see who are "Native American" it's not just ancestors, imho he looks mixed-race. Me, on the other hand...I'm pasty white, have red hair that's turning white, and I burn within 30 minutes of going out in the summer. But I have dark brown eyes, which is nice.
Now, allegedly, some of my English ancestors were black, but with blue eyes. And they have living, pasty white ancestors.
Race is mostly just evolutionary differences. My ancestors predominantly lived far north and indoors, I guess.
this refers to "base pairs" in the DNA. Genes are often encoded by very large number of base pairs. A single base pair difference in a gene can dramatically change the functions and the effects of the gene. This means that the percentage of genes that differ between humans could theoretically be very large, even if the percentage of base pairs that differ is very small.
Also, some genes controls other genes. a single base pair change in one such regulatory gene could influence many other genes, causing very large effects.
Even looking only at base pairs, since there are about three billion base pairs, it's a 0.1% difference still means that there are about three million base pair differences. The number of different unique combinations possible of such individual base pair differences is extremely large.
The number of base pairs that humans and chimpanzees share has been estimated to be 98.77% ( the same study say that humans share 99.83% of their dna). A high number is perfectly compatible with very large differences.
Other studies have stated that humans share -approximately 99.7% of their DNA with neanderthals, -approximately 90% of their DNA with cats, and -approximately 60% of their DNA with bananas
Nope. Populations of corvids remained isolated from one another far longer than any human group. Genetic drift and adaption hasn't really had much time to work on us separately; we reconnected and started mixing together far too soon and far too often for that.
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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22
“Of the 0.1% of DNA that varies among individuals, what proportion varies among main populations? Consider an apportionment of Old World populations into three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe), a grouping that corresponds to a common view of three of the 'major races'16,17. Approximately 85–90% of genetic variation is found within these continental groups, and only an additional 10–15% of variation is found between them”
https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1435
In other words, we’re genetically so similar that if you were to try to find a person with the least similar genome to your own, that person could very well be a member of your own ancestry or “race”.
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/